All of us have the same thing coming - death. It's waiting. But I

The beloved actress Valerie Harper, known for her wit, courage, and radiant humanity, once said: “All of us have the same thing coming — death. It’s waiting. But I don’t want to go. I want to live to be 102!” In these words, there is no denial of mortality, but rather a joyful rebellion against it — a spirit that refuses to yield before the inevitable. Harper, who faced terminal illness with unshaken humor and light, teaches through her words that awareness of death need not bring despair. Instead, it can ignite a deeper love for life, a hunger to savor every heartbeat, every sunrise, every small and fleeting joy.

From the beginning of time, humankind has lived in the shadow of this truth: death waits for all. Kings and beggars, poets and soldiers — none escape it. The ancients called it the great equalizer, the one fate that binds all souls together. But where some tremble at this knowledge, the wise — like Harper — use it to awaken gratitude. Her words are not of fear but of yearning, a declaration that life, even with suffering, is worth clinging to with both hands. She does not wish to defy death out of arrogance, but because her love for existence is stronger than her dread of its end.

This paradox — knowing death is certain, yet choosing to celebrate life — lies at the core of the human spirit. The philosopher Epicurus once said, “Death is nothing to us, for when we exist, death is not, and when death exists, we are not.” But while the mind may reason this way, the heart still cries out, “I want to live.” In that cry, Valerie Harper speaks for all of us. To want to live to be “102” is not merely a wish for years, but a wish for time to love, to create, to be present in the unfolding miracle of being alive. It is the voice of one who has seen the fragility of the body and yet declares: “I am not done yet.”

Her quote was born not from comfort, but from confrontation — from her battle with terminal brain cancer. When she was told she had only months to live, she chose not to retreat into silence or self-pity, but to continue working, laughing, and inspiring others. In interviews, she spoke of death with grace, but of life with passion. “Don’t go to the funeral before the day of the funeral,” she once said — another of her bold reminders that to mourn our end before it arrives is to die twice. Thus, the origin of her words is rooted in courage — the kind that faces mortality not as an enemy to be feared, but as a truth to be acknowledged and transcended through joy.

There is an echo of Socrates in her wisdom, that calm philosopher who, when sentenced to death, drank the hemlock without trembling, for he knew that fear cannot change the nature of what must be. Yet Harper adds something even more radiant: the insistence on living fully before the end. She does not seek immortality in legend or legacy; she seeks it in experience — in laughter, in friendship, in each sacred moment of ordinary life. Her defiance is not against death itself, but against the tragedy of not living while alive.

Many who have faced death have discovered this same truth. Nelson Mandela, after years in prison, said that when one has looked death in the eye, every sunrise becomes a blessing. Valerie Harper’s laughter carried that same truth — the joy that springs from knowing that every breath is borrowed and therefore infinitely precious. Her wish to “live to be 102” was not measured in numbers, but in intensity — to live deeply, to love fiercely, to squeeze from each day the sweetness it contains.

The lesson she leaves us is this: do not fear death — fear unlived life. Accept that death waits, as it always has, but do not let that awareness darken your days. Let it make them brighter. Rise each morning as though the gift of waking were a miracle — for it is. Speak your love aloud. Laugh when you can. Forgive quickly. Be busy living, not waiting. Harper’s words remind us that the art of life is not in its length, but in its aliveness — and that every moment we truly live is an act of victory against the silence that follows.

So let her voice echo in our hearts: “I want to live to be 102!” — not as a plea, but as a challenge to live vibrantly, consciously, gratefully. Death may wait for all, but life belongs to those who embrace it. When the final day comes, let it find us not cowering, but smiling — for we will have lived as Valerie Harper did: with eyes open to beauty, arms open to love, and hearts so full of life that even death must bow its head in reverence.